You have? How about two in a row? I have. Last year and this year have been very stressful.
I was going to save this for a year end post, but I’m declaring an end to the stress! Right now! Actually, things are coming to a close. I’m believing for no new stresses for a long, long time.
First, let me say it hasn’t been all bad. There have been good things, too and everything seems to be working out for the best. But even the good things, on top of the bad, made for being pulled in a bunch’a different directions.
(Image courtesy of Colorado Senior Life)
I’ll start with the best thing to happen. Last year we had our first granddarlings. Two gorgeous girls, two months apart. But 600 miles apart. The picture below shows their personalities pretty well. Dani can’t be left alone for 2 seconds. Sophie is always smiling and happy. They’re both the sweetest things EV-UH.
Last year, we finally got everything moved out of my old shop. (That green around the windows always made me twitchy, but we never did anything about it. Neither have the new renters.)
It was sad. I think, in spite of having 4 booths in 3 different towns, I still held out on the hope to open up again. Even though I knew I wouldn’t. It seemed like we moved stuff forever! Weeks! We locked the doors at 5 minutes til midnight July 2. Moved everything stored in there to storage units. Not the normal 8×10’s, but the biggest ones available. Two of ’em. I’m still pulling stuff out of them to sell.
During this time, while we were in a huge mess, I lost something that had sold on Etsy. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say the buyer was not understanding. I was tempted to hang up my online selling hat with this one. All over $8. That was refunded. I did finally find the item under a pile, but by that time it was all over and I let sleeping dogs lie. This became one of those situations where I dreaded opening my email. It made me sick at my stomach. I’d wake up in the middle of the night stressing over it. It was bad.
Then in November, my 92 year old stepmother broke her femur just below her hip and had to have surgery to put a rod in her leg. We spent a lot of time at the hospital. December was uneventful, if I recall. Which brings us to this year.
My stepmother was released to put full weight on her leg in February. A couple of days later, she turned, fell and broke the other leg. Same spot, same procedure. But the outcome wasn’t good. The second surgery turned out to be more than her body could handle. She passed away in her sleep.
In March, hubby and I found out we are both diabetic. Not too terribly bad, but firmly over the line of normal. Mine was worse than hubby’s. I was devastated. I’m such a hypochondriac. It drives me nuts if anything about my body isn’t “right.” And, I’m not a medicine taker. I was determined to get the weight off and control the blood sugar with diet and exercise. Still, I sank into anxiety and depression for over a month.
I now view the diagnosis as a blessing of sorts. I’ve lost 40 lbs. since March. Haven’t seen this weight since 1994! No matter how much I wanted to lose the weight, I probably never would have done it without a scare. I’m taking Metformin and the more I read about it, the more I think I’ll continue. Apparently it’s one of the rare, good guys in prescription drugs. It seems I’m fortunate to be taking it.
In September, my dad decided to sell his house and buy a smaller house. There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the result of several decisions and changes. His house sold to the first couple that looked at it. At first, he thought he’d have an estate sale and I had about 3 weeks to get it ready. Ack!! But he decided to buy this other house and we’re in the process of moving him. He’ll store his excess in the his garage and we’ll have a big yard sale in the spring. I believe he thinks he’ll be able to park in the garage with all that stuff. <giggle> He has no idea how much junk and extra furniture he has. (Update: Click here to see what happened to the stuff that didn’t fit into his garage.)
Around the same time Daddy was making changes, Dani’s dad decided he didn’t want to be married any more. We moved Erin and Dani and all their stuff for a solid week. Moved them to our house until they get back on their feet. Of course, we’re happy to have them. Glad we can. The circumstances hurt our hearts, but we’ll do whatever we can to help. But this house is definitely a one family house. It’s a late 1950s ranch house. It’s big, but… two families? Very difficult. (Update: They are back together. Their sweet, little family is intact again.)
Then….. I had some hormonal problems that sent me into severe anxiety and depression. Okay. It felt severe to me. Remember how I can’t handle anything not being “right” with my body? Not only am I a terrible hypochondriac, I also have white coat syndrome. So I have to get more afraid not to go to the doctor than I am to go. This got to that point. Turns out I’m fine – like I knew I was, but couldn’t let go of the “what if” that was plaguing me. And it got me to the doctor for a yearly that I haven’t done in 5 years.
There was one point during all this time that I actually looked up the symptoms of a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t having one. I wasn’t even having a panic attack. As bad as I’ve been, I can’t imagine what people go through who really do have a nervous breakdown or panic attacks!
Things do seem to be settling down now. Erin and Dani are moving in with a friend back in the town where she’s built a life for the past 10 years and she’ll be job hunting. They’ll still spend time with us, so we won’t have the house back to normal for a while yet. Daddy’s move is now. Right now. Gotta be out in about 10 days. He’s doing volunteer work this morning so I’m taking the time to write this post.
Now, by golly! I’m determined to get my life back! I want it back so badly. I want to blog, work the booths and Etsy, sew, make things and CLEAN MY HOUSE! I miss it so.
I know my problems are paltry compared to so many. I feel silly seeing them in writing, but writing this post was therapeutic. I won’t blast it over the internet to try to get people to read it. If you happen to see it and read this far, that’s fine. I’m so thankful that God is in control and I’m thankful for happy endings. If you get anything out of this, I hope it helps put your own life’s problems in perspective or gives you hope for your own happy endings.
I don’t know if I’m scared or excited to see what the next year brings. I do hope we get to do some of the projects that were slated for this year. And I hope it brings more hair. Yeah. That was another stress. I kinda fit the women’s hair loss commercial. Sigh.
🙂
